UPDATE 1-Sandy leaves unprecedented challenges for New York City subways

October 30, 2012|Reuters

(Adds MTA saying no timetable for resumption of service)

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - The giant storm Sandy wreakedhavoc on the New York City subway system, flooding tunnels,garages and rail yards and threatening to paralyze the nation'slargest mass-transit system for days.

"The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but ithas never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experiencedlast night," Joseph Lhota, the chairman of the MetropolitanTransit Authority, said in a statement early on Tuesday.

All seven subway tunnels running under the East River fromManhattan to Queens and Brooklyn took in water, and anyresulting saltwater damage to the system's electrical componentswill have to be cleaned - in some cases off-site - before thesystem can be restored, MTA spokeswoman Diedre Parker said onTuesday.

At dawn on Tuesday, emergency crews were assessing thedamage to tunnels and elevated tracks. Restoring the system islikely to be a gradual process, she said.

"It's really hard to say which areas will come back first,"Parker said, adding it will likely be a combination of limitedsubway and bus service. "It will come back gradually."

The MTA said there was no timetable for getting subways,trains and buses back in operation. The agency dismissed reportson Twitter and other social media sites that subway servicewould be out for the rest of the week.

About 5.3 million people use the city's subway system onweekdays. The system, which runs around the clock, comprises 21subway routes linked by 468 stations, and stretches across 660miles (1,050 km) of track.

The MTA's Metro North Railroad lost power on its suburbanHudson and New Haven lines, while there was flooding in an EastRiver tunnel used by the Long Island Rail Road, the agency said.

The city closed down subway, bus and commuter train systemson Sunday night - a full day before Sandy, one of the biggeststorms to ever hit the United States, made landfall on Mondaynight in neighboring New Jersey.

Sandy was especially imposing because of its wide-rangingwinds. The storm brought a record storm surge of almost 14 feet(4.2 meters) to downtown Manhattan, well above the previousrecord of 10 feet (3 meters) during Hurricane Donna in 1960, theNational Weather Service said.